Gender differences influences the blood pressure level
In a study recently published, obesity in girls has a greater impact on their blood pressure than on boys.
The research has been performed for approximately 1700 adolescents, aged from 13 to 17 years old.
The objective of the study was to see how obesity affects the level of systolic blood pressure in adolescents.
Systolic blood pressure is the force with which blood pumps into the vessel walls when the heart is beating. A high systolic blood pressure indicated a high risk of stroke or another type of heart disease.
The study was conducted in California and the researchers used the systolic blood pressure level taken directly from the teenagers to compare it with their blood pressure and their body mass index (BMI). The body mass index figure was split into three categories: normal, overweight and obese and the blood pressure was categorized as normal, pre-elevated or elevated.
The results showed a strong correlation between the body mass index level and the systolic blood pressure for the both sexes.
More precisely, the results concluded that for boys, obese boys had 2 or 3.5 times higher risks of developing a pre-elevated or elevated systolic blood pressure compared to normal weight boys, whilst the obese girls had 4 to 9 times higher risks of developing pre-elevated or elevated systolic blood pressure compared to normal weight girls.
Although it is said that the female hormone, the estrogen, helps protect the heart, this study concludes that for obese girls this hormone is not very helpful.
According to these results, teenage girls with high level of body mass index and high blood pressure will most probably develop cardiovascular complications in their adult life.
The question raised is why obesity affects in such a higher proportion the girls and not the boys. According to the researchers, this may happen due to the fact that girls are involved in a much lower percentage of physical activities than boys.
The research was conducted at the University of California and the lead author was Rudy M. Ortiz, a Professor of Physiology and Nutrition.
